A New Musical Field.

Thames Star, Volume XV, Issue 4922, 18 October 1884, Page 1

A New Musical Field.

A few weeks ago I was returning home from an evening concert in one of those torturing conveyances, a suburban waggonettee. The solitary lamp which usually illuminates the interior of these vehicles had burned itself out, and we were in darkness. There were three of us altogether, and for a considerable distance we maintained the unsociable silence characteristic of such occasions. The cab was a wretched, antiquated affair, with that peculiar kind of spring which seems to magnify the irregularities of the road, and, for my own part, I found my time fully occupied in doing what I could to ease off the jolts. What with the darkness, the wild lurches of the cab, and the silence, an eerie feeling came over me. Presently I became aware of a rough agricultural sort of voice, which appeared to; issue from my vis (fvis, whom I was totally unable to see. I don't know whether he was addressing himself to me or the other passenger, but this is what he said :— " There's no mistaking what kind of a musical taste they're got here. They want realism. That's where art's going to now, for when the people want realism they've got to have it. JNow, just look at to night, for instance. That ' fetorni on the Organ,* what is it? They call it descriptive, bat it's nothing but reatism. It starts with a kind of soft wheezy persuading sort of ohune (he meant tune; representing, as I take it, a fine day, then it goes off into a kind of squirm on tbe low notes, and after awhile there's thunder, and when the organist lifts his shoulders and wriggles about his seat, banging away with his feet and hands, it wants no programme to tell you iliat the storm's on sn full blast. Tbe only thiDg wanted to make it perfect is lightning, but I s'poae they haven't got a lightning stop on lh<j organ yet." Nobody answered hira, but the other passenger coughed slightly. " Perhaps you've heard it p" The other passenger and I coughed simultaneously. " That's not the only chuue of the kind, neither, llureu't wo got the 'Anvil Choru*,' with nal anvils? And isn't it one of the pop'larest things ever sung out of an opera? More than that, there's the ' Caravan March ' in the desert, played t<& make you believe you are standing in the middle of Sahara, while a caravan with camels and a brass band at its head passes by. A little thing struck meat the concert tonight that perhaps few besides me noticed. They had 'The Death of Nelson,' and it went real grand. Tub people screamed with joy, but they didn't know what it was pleasing 'em so much. It was the big drum as they had. Only one bang was got out of it all through the gong, but what did it represent P It represented ' the fatal wound that stritched him on the ground '—$ elson you know —and it male the uhune lifelike. If they had let a pistol off it would have been even better. But the-people like it. It struck a chord, and you can't get away from it. "Now, that's just,what I say. Don't you think, seeing how the people take.to that sort of music, that more of it ought to be written P There's a lot o£ tnia wishy-washy kiod of chuneg played, par-»

ticterly o y-< fcbp pinno, that you caan't make anything out of. You caan't do it, .you know. Why? Because they don't represent anything. They don't recall any stirring scenes, and they don't touch a real tender chord of er—er —memory, or—em—a—tenderness, so to speak. They aren't real, and that's the long and short of it. While I waa listening-tothat 'Storm,' and watching how the people liked it, it appeared to me that musi» cians don't grasp the situation. Folks want something startling. Now, what about • The Dynamite Explosion on the Organ ? ' After describing the clockwork and laying the machine under the gaol, the organist could jump on the key-board, and his assistants could lie on the footnotes " (pedals, I guessed), "and half a dozen drummers could help, and all the ' doors of the hall could bo slammed. That would be a grand effect, and it would fetch the people. Then there's ' The Railway Collision.' Lord ! what a subject that would be; Just think how you could work in the shrieks of the wounded and dying, the hiss of the steam valve, with ' Later Particulars' in Part 11., giving harrowing details. George ! I think I sec the sweat on the people as they listen." The other passenger stopped the cab , and got out hurriedly. I thing he must hare been connected with music in some .way. Perhaps he was an organ blower. The speaker went on—: 11 Not that you'd have to be always going in for explosions and that sort of effec. You could make a neat thing out of ' The-Luggage Train-goin'-up-an Incline Sonata,'if you studied it up a bit. P'raps you don't take me? You knowhow a luggage train goes up an incline, don't you?" A severe cough. X was now, alas, alone with him. " No! Why it goes clank-i- ty, clank-i ty, dank-i-ty,. clank. I've heard bits of poetry read out loud that went like that. Let's see. Something after this style— * Oh—rug—ged—and—rough—is—the — road —to —Saint—Kilda—and—banged— you— will—be—if—you—drive—there'll—pon —' , Chunes could be made to hobble like that. So've you mebbe. Why hang it all, there's no end of subjects. If you selected " The Watchmaker's Shop." there would be the ticking, and the bells striking the hours, and the alarms going off, with real clocks, mind you, all to give what I've heard 'em call local colouring. - That would be realism again. It would waken up people's emotions. "How does 'Presbyterian Assembly Storm on the Organ,' with a bagpipe ao~ jcompanimeut, strike jou? You could have a prayer in it they have in 'Zampa, only it would have to be a lot longer, and the notes could be cut off sharp to represent the Scotch language. And then what a field there is in Parliament! Heavens! reflect what a hit the 'A. T. Clark Bumble' for the 32-foot notes-would be ! Or' The Nimmo Silver Trumpet/ for the trumpet tubes with an angelic voxa (vox angelica he must have meant) solo. Or, 'The Russell Aggravation,' with a special ■v part written- for the German flageolet wanting a drink. Or even 'The Pearson Yah—Yer—Yawr'—that would be a new kind of a title/ he, he ! ' The Mackay and M'Coll Duet' would take well too, I'm sure. A rasp rubbed over a bit of tin for the one, and a few healthy bees and jnoskeeters inside of a bass fiddle for the other would- —what, going ? . I was thinking 'The Boiler-makers' Fantasia'"—— What more he was thinking, I don't know. I left him to his dark and dreary loneliness. Goodness alone knows what monstrosities his mind, unnaturally excited by the concert and the fearful plunging. .of the cab, conjured up before he got to his home, if he had any.